Industrywide Issues

Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Regulation | Statewide NY

Dueling Rallies in Albany Over Cuomo’s Fracking Plan
June 15, 2012June 15, 2012

Both anti- and pro-drillers staged rallies in Albany, NY yesterday in response to the leaked plan by the Cuomo administration to allow limited hydraulic fracturing of gas wells in five Southern Tier counties.

Perhaps two dozen anti-drilling protestors showed up outside of Gov. Cuomo’s office for their PR appearance before the cameras. An hour later, they went to stand outside of a much a larger crowd of pro-drillers who staged a press conference featuring five town supervisors who were there to say they want drilling in their townships.

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Economic Impact | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Jobs | Pennsylvania | Processing Plants | Shell | Statewide PA

Gov. Corbett’s PR Campaign for $1.7B Cracker Plant Tax Break
June 15, 2012June 15, 2012

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett officially launched his public relations effort yesterday to get the PA legislature to pass a package of tax credits for Shell to build an ethane cracker plant in the state. The package of tax credits will amount to $1.7 billion over a 25-year period (up to $66 million per year) and will not begin until 2017 at the earliest.

Three of Corbett’s cabinet secretaries held a forum at the Beaver County community college yesterday, near the location of the proposed plant (in Beaver County), to push for the tax credits. When the new plant is built, it will result in 20,000 new jobs throughout the region.

Corbett is making a push to get the legislature to adopt the package by the end of June, before legislators adjourn for summer recess. But many legislators complain they don’t know enough about the plan (yet) to cast a vote either way. This effort by Corbett and his administration is an attempt to bridge that gap.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues

Update on NETL Faults & Fracking Study
June 15, 2012June 15, 2012

Earlier this week MDN covered news of a study about to be released by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) which looks at whether or not fracking fluids can find their way to the surface through faults or cracks (see this MDN story).

Based on the article MDN read, we floated the question, “Are we being set up?” Any time MDN reads about “this is science and incontrovertible and this will settle it once and for all” it sets off red flags—like we’re about to be railroaded.

Fortunately Pam Casey, a reporter with the West Virginia State Journal, read the MDN article and dug deeper. What she found is reassuring:

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Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | New York | Norse Energy | Statewide NY

Norse Says NY Force Majeure Settlement Doesn’t Apply to Them
June 15, 2012June 15, 2012

MDN reported today that New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office struck a deal with Chesapeake Energy over the issue of extending landowner leases in New York using the “force majeure” clause in the contract (see this MDN story). Norse Energy issued a press release saying essentially that the deal does not apply to them, and their force majeure claims are still in place until overturned by a court.

Here’s the Norse press release:

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Industrywide Issues | Jobs | Statewide WV | West Virginia

WV Oil & Gas Employment Numbers: Underreported by 14K?
June 15, 2012June 15, 2012

MDN reported two days ago that WorkForce West Virginia reported that direct jobs held by West Virginians in the oil and gas industry in the state had actually decreased from 2010 to 2011 (see this MDN story). We observed the total number of jobs cited, 2,179 in 2011, seemed really low, and perhaps inaccurate. WorkForce WV says that’s the total number of “direct” jobs held by West Virginians so we took them at their word.

But what’s a “direct” as opposed to an “indirect” (but created because of the drilling industry) job? Seems we’ve hit some semantic issues here. According to the Independent Oil and Gas Association of West Virginia, the actual number is something over 16,000 jobs:

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Energy Companies | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Lycoming County | National Fuel | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Seneca Resources

Trout Run Pipeline Goes Operational, Seneca Wells Connect
June 15, 2012June 15, 2012

National Fuel Gas Midstream’s new Trout Run Gathering System (Lycoming County, PA) came online May 30 and is now delivering natural gas to the Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line (Transco). Because the new pipeline is now operational, Seneca Resources has brought online four new wells. As of a few days ago, the wells were producing a combined 45 million cubic feet of gas per day.

National Fuel Gas’ press release:

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Statewide NY

NY Chefs Form Group to Oppose Fracking
June 15, 2012June 15, 2012

This is interesting—and odd—news: A bunch of chefs in New York City (where else?) have formed a group to support a ban on the fracking that if it happens, will happen four hours from where they live and work. Why? Uh yeah, good question.

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About MDN | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues

MDN Attends Screening of ‘Truthland’ Movie
June 14, 2012June 14, 2012

It was MDN’s pleasure to attend a screening of the newly released Truthland movie last evening at the Susquehanna Valley High School in Conklin, NY. Truthland is a short film, about 34 minutes in length, that takes as its mission the debunking of Josh Fox’s well-known movie Gasland.

The star of Truthland is a Pennsylvania woman by the name of Shelly DePue. She and her husband Phil and their children live on a farm in northeastern PA—land that’s been in Phil’s family for the past 120 years. They leased their land for shale gas drilling several years ago, and then along came Gasland with wild claims that fracking is hugely dangerous. The movie raised red flags and questions for Shelly and sent her on a journey to find out the truth (or as it turns out, half- and un-truth) about Gasland. This movie (watch it below) chronicles her quest to get her questions answered.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Regulation | Statewide NY

Swift Response to Cuomo’s NY Fracking Plan
June 14, 2012June 14, 2012

As MDN predicted yesterday, the initial reaction of anti-drillers in New York that Gov. Cuomo is considering limited fracking in the state has been negative (see this MDN story). They needn’t worry, and once they figure it out, they’ll be happy with Andy’s latest plan because it gives them an excuse to protest and rabble-rouse at town board meetings for the next two years. The fight is going local in New York.

The Albany Times Union hints that Cuomo’s “announcement” of his plans for fracking—which was leaked to the New York Times yesterday—is a trial balloon to gage public reaction to the idea that he would allow drilling in five (MDN calls it the “Lucky Five”) Southern Tier counties of New York for a couple of years to see how it goes.

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Industrywide Issues | Jobs | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Statewide PA

DOL Targets Shale Gas Subcontractors over Pay Practices
June 14, 2012June 14, 2012

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) is targeting the shale gas drilling industry in northeastern Pennsylvania for enforcement actions. The specific issue they are targeting is subcontractors who DOL claims are intentionally misclassifying workers as independent contractors (“1099”) instead of as regular employees (“W2”). By doing so, DOL claims employers are skirting tax withholdings and payment of workers’ compensation and workers are denied benefits like paid holidays, family leave and overtime pay.

What evidence of this “widespread problem” has the DOL hot-and-bothered enough to launch a full-out attack on small businesses in PA? A study—with suspect data.

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Economic Impact | Industrywide Issues

Data Centers May Relocate to Use Marcellus Shale Gas
June 14, 2012June 14, 2012

Large computer data centers (sometimes called server farms), with thousands of computers, use a lot of electricity. By some estimates data centers use up to 2.2% of all the electricity generated in the U.S.

Now there’s talk that data centers, which have often been constructed in southern states, may have their eye on building new centers in the Mid-Atlantic region. Why? Marcellus shale gas. They want to take advantage of low gas prices and by building next to gas fields in the Marcellus, they can do just that.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Pipelines | Statewide NY

The Latest Anti-Drilling Scare Tactic: Radon in Shale Gas
June 14, 2012June 14, 2012

There’s no polite way to say this, so I won’t bother: The nutters are coming out of the woodwork. Damascus Citizens for Sustainability (DCS), NYH2O and 50 “other signatories” have sent a letter to Speaker Quinn of the New York City Council asking the speaker to convene hearings on the issue of radon in natural gas. They are claiming (and this is the nutty part) that Marcellus Shale gas contains radon and that Marcellus gas gets to market so fast the radon doesn’t have time to break down and dissipate. That is, it’s a health risk for New York City residents who use natural gas.

The solution, according to DCS and the others? Don’t use natural gas—at least not the cheap, abundant natural gas that comes from the Marcellus Shale.

Here’s their press release, if you can understand it:

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Energy Services | Fayette County | Greene County (PA) | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Peregrine Keystone Gas Pipeline | Pipelines | Regulation | Washington County

Peregrine Pipeline Withdraws Public Utility Application
June 14, 2012June 14, 2012

Peregrine Keystone Gas Pipeline had planned to construct a gathering pipeline in Greene, Fayette and Washington counties in western PA. They filed an application with the PA Public Utility Commission (PUC) in 2010 to become a public utility which would grant them the right to use eminent domain to force landowners to allow them to build a pipeline across their property.

Last month an administrative law judge ruled against Peregrine’s application, and on June 8 Peregrine withdrew the application. Although they believe they have a strong case, with the low price of natural gas and the high likelihood of an extended court battle, Peregrine has given up on public utility status.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Regulation | Statewide NY

Breaking: NY Will Allow Fracking in Select (Few) Locations
June 13, 2012June 13, 2012

Breaking News: The fight over fracking in New York is about to go very local—down to the township level. The New York Times is reporting that Gov. Andrew Cuomo will soon announce a plan that will allow hydraulic fracturing in a few select counties in New York, most of them along or near the border with Pennsylvania. His plan will limit hydraulic fracturing to only those counties AND townships within those counties that actually want drilling—at least for “the next several years.”

Why limit it? To “reduce the risk of groundwater contamination.” And because he’s trying to placate both sides of the fracking debate. His environmentalist supporters are going to abandon him if he doesn’t at least make some moves to appease them.

Fait accompli. The anti-drillers will not view this as a victory, but it is—for them. This plan buys anti-drillers another two years or more to continue agitating and demagoguing the issue of hydraulic fracturing and mount wave after wave of protests at town board meetings. It’s about to be an interesting couple of years for those of us who live in New York and support drilling (not that the past four long years have been boring).

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Industrywide Issues | Jobs | Statewide WV | West Virginia

Does Shale Gas Drilling Create Jobs for In-State Residents?
June 13, 2012June 13, 2012

There’s no doubt that Marcellus and Utica Shale drilling creates jobs. But one of the criticisms often leveled is that jobs directly related to drilling are given to people from other states, like Texas and Louisiana and Oklahoma—states with experienced oil and gas workers who don’t need extensive training.

Recent employment numbers from West Virginia seem to lend credence to those concerns. The unemployment rate has risen slightly in WV, but more telling, employment of West Virginians who work directly in the oil and gas sector dropped slightly from 2010 to 2011. However, indirect jobs in other industries—like hotels, restaurants and retail businesses—have gone up due to drilling. It seems to be a mixed picture, at least in WV, with respect to job creation.

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Bradford County | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Inergy | Litigation | Lycoming County | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Sullivan County

Court Clears Way to Build MARC 1 Marcellus Pipeline in PA
June 13, 2012June 13, 2012

A federal appeals court has cleared the way for the construction of the MARC 1 Marcellus Shale pipeline to be built in northeastern Pennsylvania. The court released a decision yesterday rejecting claims by “environmental” groups to stop the pipeline. Part of their argument revolved around “the broader impacts” caused by natural gas drilling—that is, pipelines make more drilling likely and that’s not a good thing (according to them). The court rejected that argument.

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